Intel claims it has 50 potential customers for its Foundry

Speaking to investors during yesterday's earnings call, new Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger provided an update about the Intel Foundry Services unit. In the past, Intel's effort to launch a foundry division failed because the company had too many limitations and was unable to meet its promises. Gelsinger promises to open up Intel more, giving customers a lot more freedom to manufacture chips using Intel's fabs.

The chip giant aims to provide foundry capacity in the US as well as at a future plant in Europe. Gelsinger claims Intel is in talks with 50 potential customers. Gelsinger called on governments to aid in this effort and to come up with the necessary subsidies to bring back domestic chip production.

Since its announcement, the industry response to Intel Foundry Services have already been incredible. We are engaged with well over 50 potential customers today. We are seeing excitement from some of the top technology giants in the world across industry verticals ranging from automotive to high-performance compute and cloud service providers.

We have been responding to and proactively engaging with automotive component suppliers on how we can help them with their supply chains and alleviate shortages in both the near- and long-term.

We are doing our part to address this global supply crisis, but we cannot do it alone. The investment needed at the scale required is immense and it will require close industry and government partnership to address this need. -- Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger

First 7nm tile taping out soon

Additionally, Gelsinger said 7nm is progressing well and promised the 7nm compute tile for Meteor Lake will be taped out within the next couple of weeks. Meteor Lake is expected to hit the market in 2023.